


The Hour of Lead

by MindNoise



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8432815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindNoise/pseuds/MindNoise
Summary: This deals with grief. We've all been there, and Tommy is currently there.





	

 He lies still. Staring at nothing. Hearing nothing.

He refuses to acknowledge it, the change his world undertook.

He refuses to cry. There’s no one to catch his tears.

His throat wells with emotion. He swallows it, forces it into silence. He’s been doing that all day – forever, it seems – and his throat hurts.

His mind hurts.

His heart hurts.

Everything hurts.

The emotional chaos inside rolls around like a storm, beating on his heart until he feels tattered and lost and exhausted. If he folds himself as small as possible he’ll stop feeling what’s raging inside; it wants out. He won’t let it out. He would just be caught up in a tangled mess that the rest of the world calls grief. And he’ll have to go through it; not them. They’ll go on like nothing happened, like nothing’s wrong. But everything is wrong. Nothing will be the same again.

He hears noise outside. Traffic. Voices. The world is still turning. How is that possible? How is the world going on like nothing has happened? People walking around like nothing has changed. Don’t they know everything has changed? That something is missing? He hates the world. He doesn’t feel part of it now. He feels outside of it, separated. He’s different now. He’s changed. Forced to change. He doesn’t like it.

The sun is going down. The light is fading.

He lies perfectly still. 

He doesn’t blink.

Where does everything go from here? What does he do now? Does Tomorrow have to come? Not that he wants Today to stay. He doesn’t want to move on because that would mean acceptance and he definitely doesn’t accept this. He doesn’t want sympathy. He doesn’t want tears. He wants what’s gone. Why is that so much to ask?

He doesn’t want to face this, not now, not later, not ever. And he’ll be made to face this. He feels trapped. Why is there no way out? If he could fall into an abyss, a void it would quiet his mind. No questions, no looks, no whispers, no stupid generic promises of a better time to come. Nothing. Maybe then the Thing hanging over him would disappear and he could stop fidgeting and fighting and being afraid.

Fear keeps trying to take over. It flutters and moves restlessly around him, inside him. He tries to ignore it, distract it so it won’t settle over him, because once it does it’ll start him down a path he is not ready to go at yet. Not alone. Not now. Later. Or never.

He’s so tired he feels drunk. It’s been a long day. The longest day in many years. The days coming are going to be longer and he resents them already. He knows he’ll go through them mechanically, numbly. Outwardly, he’ll look with a blankness at every face he sees and maybe they won’t suspect how fragile he feels. Inside, he’s off balance. He’s sinking. Drowning. There’s no one to pull him up. He’s overwhelmed. Unprepared. Lost. Who will find him? Who will ground him? Who is his constant now?

His body shudders. His heart is threatening to explode. It pounds on him, through him, relentless and loud. So damn loud. He swallows again and again, striking back against that hard bubble of anguish that keeps growing. It’s too big and intense, and he knows he can’t control it. If he holds it back, then maybe it won’t ever come and none of this will be real. He won’t have to move fully into despair where he’ll have no choice but to grieve. If he ignores it, it will go away. Except that it won’t.

His breathing becomes erratic. He forces his mind to go blank. Tomorrow doesn’t have to come. He can stay right here, just like this, and it will have to stay away. He would rather be still and stone-like than roiling in heartache.

Arms slip around him and a familiarity falls over him. The hold is firm. He’s stable. Calmness and solidity are supporting him. A soft, sweet breath whispers in his ear. It’s a breath he wasn’t expecting. Hoping for, but not expecting. It’s a haven, that voice, that presence.

“Let go,” Adam says.

Something breaks and crashes and floods.

He’s finally safe.

Tommy weeps.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something to acknowledge what he's going through right now.  
> Title is from an Emily Dickinson poem, #372, which is a poem I read constantly the first time I lost someone close.


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